Football: Coach Holgorsen News Conference
February 01, 2012 08:46 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Transcript of WVU football coach Dana Holgorsen's Feb. 1 news conference:
Opening Statement ...
We finished up getting 26 guys. Five of them went back to last year, and those are the guys that I want to talk about first, because I have not had an opportunity to meet with you guys since those guys have been on campus. Overall, I am happy with what we got. Twenty-six guys all together - 14 on offense and 12 on defense. There really wasn’t any area that we just had to stockpile, but if you look at the class going from one quarterback, two running backs, four offensive linemen, one tight end, six receivers, three defensive linemen, three linebackers, four safeties and two cornerbacks. There was a little bit of everything, which is kind of what we were after. Recruiting is not an exact science to the point to where you can dictate exactly what you get at the end. You have got to take what you got. As far as the balance of guys, we are real excited about where we are at with it. If you look, a lot has been made of this as far as where we are going to get our guys from, and I told you all, that wasn’t going to change too much from what we have done in the past. Right now, we have got 11 from Florida, four from Ohio, four from Texas, three from Maryland and two from New Jersey and one each from Minnesota and Pennsylvania. We need to be able to take care of the surrounding areas from West Virginia but also get down into Florida, and I think the Orange Bowl helped create a lot of excitement down there. We had those buses driving around and a lot of those kids went to the game and all that. That is as many as we have gotten out of Florida, and Texas continues to be a state that we will continue to get into based on where we want to pull some kids from, going in Big 12 conference.
On the five guys currently on campus
Imarjaye Albury ...
Imarjaye Albury is a defensive tackle. He is a big, strong guy, who played at Northwestern High School down in Miami. He was a force for them for a couple of years, and we are excited to have him on campus.
Ford Childress ...
We have Ford Childress, who played at Kinkaid school. He is a big, tall guy, who has been in a passing offense for the last three years and understands what we do offensively. We beat a lot of people out all the way from the west coast to the east coast. We are excited to have him up here.
Sean Walters ...
We have Sean Walters, who is a big, tall, lean safety. He is 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds. He didn’t play his junior year. He came back from that and had a heck of a senior year. He is a rangy guy who can cover a lot of ground, play safety. He will probably gain some weight and be able to move down to an outside linebacker at some point as well.
Jordan Thompson ...
Jordan Thompson is a slot (receiver). He comes from Katy High School, which has won about 95 percent of their games over the last decade or two, but comes from a very good program. He was the second leading receiver in the city of Houston. He is not a very big guy, but as we have found out last year with Dustin, you come in and get into a program, you are going to gain weight, and as long as you can play, you are going to be able to play. We look forward to him being able to go through the spring.
Karl Joseph ...
Karl Joseph is the fifth guy, who has been doing an unbelievable job in the weight room. It is not going to take him a long to adjust physically. He is 5-foot-9, 190-pounds and has got muscles sticking out everywhere. You can see on film that he will be able to come up and hit you and should adjust.
We did need a little bit of help at inside receiver and safety, as well as at quarterback where we only have two bodies. Those five guys are going to be able to come in and help us right away in the spring. They are down there throwing weights around right now and will be able to get out there and do a lot of good things in the spring.
On who will be arriving on campus on June 10, 2012 ...
Moving on to the guys that will be here in June. We have told the rest of these guys, which there is 21 of them, to be ready to finish the season strong, finish the academic year strong, finish up their academics and then join the team June 10th. That will be the day that they can get into the summer session, as long as their academics are in order, we look forward to getting these guys on campus.
Christian Brown ...
Christian Brown is a defensive tackle out of New Jersey. He only played one year up in New Jersey. He is a big body. He is a strong kid. He played down in Florida for the majority of his career and then came up into Jersey as a move-in with his father and was able to play pretty good in about seven games. You can’t have enough big bodies on the defensive line. We are all aware of that. Probably one of the needs that we have heading into next year is to get some young guys who are able to play right away when it comes to defensive line.
Roshard Burney ...
This kid rushed for 2,000 yards in high school. That doesn’t happen very often. He is a big, strong, powerful guy, who probably weighs 205-pounds already, and he is going to get bigger. He runs on his toes, the kid smiles a bunch and was all-state down in Florida. He is a guy that when you watch his tape, he is going to run you over, but then he is also going to bounce off of you and out-run people. He has got a really good combination of strength and size and can run around pretty fast as well.
Torry Clayton ...
We were able to get a second running back out of south Florida, Torry Clayton. He is more like Roshard, then he is like Buie and Garrison. Buie and Garrison are guys that are shifty guys that can get in spaces and make you miss and start and stop on a dime. Torry is a little bit more of a slasher. He has some power to him. He is not a small guy. He is going to be able to give us some strength in the backfield. As we saw last year, we started camp with five backs, and we were down to two in the bowl game. That is a position that through wear and tear with those guys that you need to play a lot of bodies. We also played two or three bigger backs who are able to get in there and do blocking. With as much as we are in two back and three back sets, the more of those running backs we can have back there, the better. The more of those guys that can carry the ball, the better. So we are looking at a couple of backs that we got from down there that we are pretty excited about who can do a whole bunch of different things.
Travares Copeland ...
Travares Copeland, out of Port St. Lucie, probably has as good of feet as anybody on the roster that we have right now. The kid played quarterback for them. There is a whole bunch of different positions that he can play. He is probably more along the lines of a slot receiver. We can do a lot of different stuff with to get him the ball. He runs well and was a kid that again can play a whole bunch of different positions and those are the type of kids that we want to get. Guys that can play a whole lot of positions. He wants to play receiver so we will stick him in there and try to get him the ball as much as we can.
KJ Dillon ...
KJ is a great kid. He is a good looking 6-foot-2, 195-pound guy that will smack you. He played both ways for Apopka, which is a really good program in Orlando, that has won a whole bunch of games. He is another guy that is long and lean and can run around and that will also strike you. And as you guys see, some of these highlights we put together for some of these guys, the one thing on that whole tape that stood out to me was when you put him on there, guys running a route across the middle catching the ball, the guy is knocking the heck out of them. KJ is able to cover a lot of ground. He is a physical kid, who is going to get bigger. He is going to get stronger, and he is going to be a guy who could come in and be able to play.
Mark Glowinski ...
Mark Glowinski is the only junior college kid that we signed this year out of Lackawanna. He is an eastern Pennsylvania kid. He is a guy that gained on average 50 pounds over the last couple of years. Coming out of high school, he wasn’t very developed. He was tall and rangy. He went to Lackawanna and gained about 100 pounds, and you watch him come off the ball, he is a physical kid. He’s every bit a 6-foot-5, 6-foot-6, 300 pounds. He has got great feet, but he plays with an attitude. He has two years of college experience already under his belt, where he can come in and will have a chance to compete for the starting left tackle spot come next year. It was important to us to get one junior college offensive lineman. When you look at what we have coming back from an offensive line standpoint, we basically have four starters coming back, and then we are able to plug a guy like him in there to be the fifth starter or some guys that we will have in the spring to be the fifth starter. It will give us some depth, and it will be fun to watch that unfold.
Jarrod Harper ...
Jarrod Harper is a safety from right down the road in Frostburg, Maryland. He was our first commit of the class and was our most solid commit of the class. There is nobody on our list that wants to be a Mountaineer more than Jarrod. He probably came to every home game. He played a lot of running back for Frostburg, and they won a bunch games. He has played a lot of football. He just wants to play on the defensive side of the ball, so we will play him at safety. He was one of the most solid kids that we had. He is just a pleasure to be around. He has a big old flying WV on the side of his head here for the last couple of days and will keep it here. Can’t wait to get him here. He would walk here if he could get into school and be down there in the weight room right now.
Korey Harris ...
Korey Harris is a defensive end. He is a good-looking kid. He is 6-foot-4, 230 out of Jacksonville, Fla. He is a guy who will develop into a big boy. He is 6-foot-4, 230-pounds right now, but can come off the ball and get after the quarterback. Headed into the conference that we are heading into, it is going to be crucial that we have guys that can rush the passer, as we all understand that, and this is a guy that regardless of how big he is, you can see his tenacity when he comes off the ball and his desire to get to the quarterback.
Garrett Hope ...
Garrett Hope, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound out of The Woodlands, Texas. Another program in that state of Texas in Houston that has won a tremendous amount of games. You talk about Pearland High School, Katy High School and The Woodlands High School, those three teams win as many games in the state of Texas as anybody else does. He is a guy who transferred in a couple of years ago out of Tulsa out of Jenks, which also is a program that won just a ton of games and so his background from what he has been used to is good. He came in and played at outside linebacker. He is a guy who can drop into the gap, but he is also a guy who can rush the passer and is a big physical guy, that to the point, where he is good against the run as well.
Will Johnson ...
Will Johnson is a tight end out of Minnesota. He came on a visit in December and watched us practice and how we used Tyler Urban a lot as far as a bigger body, who can put his hand on the ground, and can come off and zone block. He can also run down field and catch the ball. Watching him run up and down the basketball court there at his high school in Minnesota, you can tell and based on what we saw on tape, he is a guy who we are not interested in just sticking his hand in the ground and watching him block. He is a guy who will be able to run a whole bunch of routes and be able to catch the ball down field certainly as much as Tyler did and probably even more than that. Physically, he is ready to do that right now.
Dee Joyner ...
Dee Joyner is a receiver out of Miami Central. He moved in from Georgia and only played one year there in south Florida. Based on his junior tape in Georgia, we loved how he came in out of his cuts. He isn’t the biggest dude, but he is a playmaker. He can run down field and catch the ball. He is a really good return guy. Going into Miami Central where they have got just tons of talent, he was able to adjust quickly and be one of their most productive guys on the field. He helped them to a 13-1 record and made a lot of plays on a team that had a lot of guys that can make a lot of plays. He adjusted quickly.
Nana Kyeremeh ...
Nana Kyeremeh might be the fastest guy in this class. He comes from Worthington, Ohio, where the guy did everything. You talk about a guy that can be a cornerback. He is a 6-foot, 6-foot-1 guy who can play cornerback, that can play safety and does an unbelievable job of rushing kicks and blocking kicks. He has probably blocked four or five of them this year. He can play a lot of different things. He is very, very smart kid. I don’t know what we are going to do with him yet. He can be a cornerback, he could be a safety, and he is going to keep continuing to grow. You watch him make plays as far as coming off the edge blocking kicks. He has got a burst and then you also see him pick a ball and take it back for a touchdown. There is not anybody who can catch him.
Sam Lebbie ...
Sam Lebbie is a linebacker out of DeMatha over in Washington, D.C. He is a good sized kid, who was a three-year starter for DeMatha. He had 16,000 tackles over the course of his career. He has played a lot of ball, is a physical kid and obviously is not going to get any smaller. I look forward to seeing how he develops over the years.
Devonte Mathis ...
Devonte Mathis is another guy from Miramar, who was a very instrumental kid when it came to being on a team that won 13 games and was 13-1 and played safety for them, inside receiver for them, played wideout for them, played quarterback for them and did a whole bunch of things. When you talk about getting as many guys as you can with that type of a body type who can play that many different positions, you got a guy that is going to be extremely productive.
Tony Matteo ...
Tony Matteo is out of Manchester High School in Ohio. Tony is another one of these guys who came over to about five different camps and came over to about five different games. He was solid from the very beginning and is a very smart kid who can play center, can play guard and is athletic enough to play tackle. He is going to play in the all-star games over in Ohio. He is a big, tough, country kid who will come over and work hard and be able to take the abuse that he gets from coach Bedenbaugh.
Tyler Orlosky ...
The other guy that coach Bedenbaugh spent a whole bunch of time recruiting is Tyler Orlosky, another big, strong guy. Bill likes football quite a bit. We are talking about coach Bedenbaugh. He likes football, and he likes to go home and eat dinner and bounce his little kid on his knee. Tyler Orlosky and Tony are the same two types of kids where they like to play football and lift weights and go home and sleep and wake up and do the same thing over and over again. Tyler played at St. Edward High School over in Cleveland. He is a great kid. His work ethic is unbelievable and is a big, strong, powerful guy who the more of those guys that you can have up front, the better.
Deontay McManus ...
We are excited about Deontay. He was one of our early commits and is one of the most highly rated guys that we have. He is very productive guy, and he was a very highly recruited guy. He committed in the summer and was solid since day one. We are fired up about getting him over here as soon as we can to teach him what to do and get him out there. Physically, I can tell you right now that he is ready to play at the next level. We have got to get him here and teach him what to do, and we have got to get his skills right to the point to where he can get out there and compete at this level. We are excited about Deontay, and we can’t wait to get him here.
Brandon Napolean ...
Brandon Napolean is from St. Peter’s Prep in New Jersey. He comes from a great family. His dad is Eugene Napolean, who was a great player here back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is a wonderful guy. Brandon is a great player. He played quarterback for them, and they won a whole bunch of games like they have for years over in Jersey. He is a guy who can do a whole lot of different things. He can play on either side of the ball. We have kind of settled right now to start him playing at cornerback. He has enough athletic ability to be able to play cornerback and has played a whole bunch of football.
Noble Nwachukwu ...
Noble Nwachukwu is a guy out of Dallas, Texas. He has only played for a few years. He is an outside linebacker type of guy who you see coming off the ball with some pop and can rush the passer. He is a guy who has played at Wylle. That is a high school that they have won a whole bunch of games and played very good competition to the point he is going to be used to the competition. It is just about being able to come in and be able to adjust to the speed of the game. He does do a great job of coming off the ball and rushing the passer.
Adam Pankey ...
Adam Pankey is the fourth offensive lineman. We wanted to get four, and we got four. We are pretty excited about the four guys that we got. He is an enormous dude. He is 6-foot-5, 220 and runs up and down the basketball court, throwing elbows, getting rebounds and changing directions. He is a guy that was pretty highly recruited that we got in on late and was able to seal the deal here in the last few days. He is really a good kid. He comes from a fun family, is a fun kid to be around, and he has got some younger siblings that might even be bigger than him it looks like to me. So we are excited about the offensive line class that we put together, and he was the one that rounded that out.
Devonte Robinson ...
Devonte Robinson is taller than 6-foot-1. It says 6-foot-1 from Delray Beach and Village Academy. He had a great senior season and probably went from 6-foot-1 to closer to 6-foot-2, possibly 6-foot-3 over the course of his senior year. He had a great year. Almost 1,000 yards receiving. He is a wideout. You talk about the different types of receivers that we have. Bigger guys, shiftier guys, taller, leaner guys. The taller, leaner guys are the ones that we stick out wide, and he fits the mold as a pure wideout who is able to get down field at the speed but also be able to catch the ball over the shoulder.
On how the defensive recruiting has changed in the last month ...
A little bit. I thought we wanted some more edge rush guys which we are going to go to a more 3-4 scheme then the stack. In the stack, you are playing with a lot of middle linebacker type bodies, which we have a lot of those on campus as well. We needed to be able to get some outside linebacker type guys who will be able to gain weight and be able to come down and be defensive end guys and come off the field and rush. We got two or three of those bodies who we are looking for as far as the outside goes.
On the biggest needs in the 2012 class ...
You need everything. If I ask each one of these position coaches how many guys do they need to add to their room, they are going tell me about two to three more per position that we can actually sign. We felt like we needed a little bit of everything, and we were able to get a little bit of everything. I don’t think it is one specific area that we wanted to get, as opposed to just making sure that we hit all areas. Recruiting is not an exact science to the point to where, at the end, you are not going to be able to pinpoint exactly what your numbers are. You send out a bunch of letters, and you get back what you get back and you got to make that work.
On how many scholarships were available ...
Right now in the spring, we have got 60 or 61. With adding the five guys, we are at 61 right now, which means we can add 25 in the fall considering we keep everybody which is all about the retention aspect of things. If all 60 of those guys continue to get into that weight room and work hard and do a good job in the class room, out retention is good. The 20 some guys that we add, we will then be somewhere around 80. We may add a few or lose a few, you never know what is going to happen.
On paying attention to the ranking of the recruiting class ...
Not nearly as much as you (the media) do. It is a good starting point and a good reference. You get on the internet and the various tv shows, the reports on it, obviously we are like everybody elsewhere. We want people to say good things about us and what our body of work is, but the truth of the matter is we are not going to know how these guys fare here until a couple of years anyway. There will be a handful of them coming in who will make a difference next year. There will be a handful who will take a few years, two or three years, before they are able to contribute and then there will be a couple that we sign who are never going to be as big of a contributor as we want them to be. That is the nature of what you sign and how these kids develop. They are still 17, 18 or 19 years old to the point where we don’t know how they are going to develop totally. We try to do our best and meet our needs, but it is about getting them in here and paying them a whole bunch of attention. The five guys that I pay attention the most to on this list are the guys that are here. Those are the most important five to us right now, because they are in here working out every day. We are able to spend time with them and keep up with their academics and get in the film room. Those are the five guys who we as coaches will pay the most attention to over the next couple of months. Then when the rest of these guys get here in June, then it comes their turn to spend a whole lot of time with them to try and develop them.
On how he projects players will develop ...
You get his body type and the position that he plays and what you see on film and what you think that they are going to develop into. You don’t know if they are going to get bigger and change positions or develop their skills or how much they are going to develop their skills. It is a bit of a guessing game. We are all aware of that.
On the amount of recruits from Florida and the impact of the Orange Bowl ...
Robert Gillespie did a great job down in south Florida. Shannon Dawson took over some of the central Florida kids and did a good job prior to and after the bowl game. West Virginia always has done well in Florida, and by us being able to make it a priority and get some guys down there, and working it pretty hard, we were able to be down there a good bit of time. The exposure that we got down there, I certainly don’t think hurt.
On finishing recruiting and adding to the coaching staff at the same time ...
Not having the full staff hurts you a little bit. Like I said, I think these guys came in and did a good job. And Joe DeForest, being able to add him with his recruiting background especially as many years as he has been doing it was able to get in front of a lot of defensive guys. He was able to tell them about what the future is going to be about. This is second year in a row that we haven’t had a full staff, which it is what it is. That is the reality of college football at times, and everybody else has got to deal with it as well. We are certainly not making excuses for anything. Retention is good on a coaching staff, and if we are able to keep everybody and get everybody going in the right direction, then it might be a little bit easier next year, but each year is a different year.
On recruiting with the conference change ...
It can help. I think that everybody is very excited about going to the Big 12 at some point here. We are all anxiously awaiting the decision. The Big 12 is widely regarded as one of the better conferences out there. We are aware of that, and we are excited about where that is going to take us. We have made a conscious effort to make sure that we continue to take care of what has made West Virginia good for quite a while, which is recruit West Virginia first, recruit the surrounding states, then get into Florida, and then use the contacts that exist to be able to move west slightly.
On adding more and more recruits from Texas in the future ...
Probably slightly. They won’t continue to grow every year. You got a ceiling which we got two last year, one happened to start for us for the majority of the year. Then we got four this year. It is a priority. We are going to go there. We get guys from Houston and Dallas and the surrounding areas that call us all the time. It has got to be a good fit. There has got to be a reason for us to do that. We try to do the best that we can to find the right guy for the position, the right guy for the scholarship, then we make sure that they are wanting to come up here as well. I don’t know how many you can get. We don’t put a number of it. We settled with four, because those were the four that we wanted.
On the differences between being a head coach and assistant coach on signing day ...
It is the same thing. You wake up, make calls, you anxiously await for it to be over and you get the Letter of Intent, so you know it is final and then you start watching next year’s kids which is what we have been doing the whole day.
On recruiting until the April 1st deadline ...
That never stops. We still got a couple of open spots for 2012, so we will continue to look and see if something becomes available. Much like we did last year when we brought in the couple of seniors that had to be a part of the class, a couple of transfers, that sort of thing. If a transfer kid becomes available that fits a need, we can continue to add. High school and junior college kids continue to pop up, and if it fits a need, we will be more than happy to have him.
On recruiting kids from successful high schools ...
Good programs develop players. I am not just referring to the three schools in Texas. You take the teams like Miami Central, who was close to winning a state championship, Miramar was close to winning a state championship, and there was a lot of schools that were good programs that develop players. I don’t think those guys are done developing as well. What I just made reference to, once those guys get here, that is when our job truly kicks in, and we got to see how we can develop them. You want to recruit kids to get the best possible players that you can in here, but then you don’t quit with them. That is just when your job starts. It is not all about throwing good players out there. It is about coaching them and developing them to the point, where they continue to get better.
On when the decision will be made on who will redshirt ...
About a week before the first game. Same as we did last year. We get as many kids as we can get in here and fill the roster up with as many good players as you can to line up in August. You start practice and about 20 or so practices later is when you make that decision. We have been very clear with all those guys to not worry about redshirting, don’t worry about whether you are or whether you aren’t going to be able to participate next year. You need to come in, and you need to have a great summer which we expect all of them here, and if they are not here, we expect them all here about June 10th and then once they go through nine weeks summer strength and conditioning and then get out there and do a bunch of seven on seven stuff on their own and learn from the older kids. We line up in August, and we practice the heck out of them three weeks prior to figuring out if they are going to help us or not.
On his recruiting as a head coach ...
You still try to get a bunch of guys to develop relationships with the kids. It is not always just the area coach, but the head coach is still got to call and make the contact and go see them. Other coaches, whether it is offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator or the offensive line coach going into another area, once you narrow the list down, you try and get a bunch of people who develop relationships with them. It is busy, and it is ongoing. It never stops until today. A lot of these guys behind you (assistant coaches) back here worked a lot harder than I did at it. It is a group effort to the point where you want to get as many people involved as you can.
On the difference between teaching and developing the guys already in the program and the kids he recruited ...
I don’t buy into that. I would never use that as an excuse. You take what you got. You got a year to work with them. You take what you got and develop them, you play them, you put them into position, you try and get the most out of them. This year’s team is going to be different than last year’s team. About a month and a half ago, which was approximately a week after the bowl game, we sat in here as the 2012 team and talked about what the 2012 team needs to do. We didn’t mention anything about the 2011 team. It is all about the 2012 team. Then you add specific pieces of that puzzle, which five of the guys who are already here, then you get another 20 to add to it, and when it is time to add to it, you add to it, but it the meantime, you take what you got and do the very best you can to make them better. We don’t buy into the fact of we got to wait until our guys get in here, before we are going to be good.
On Travarse Copeland playing quarterback ...
No he is not going to play quarterback.
On developing the team and the goals for the spring ...
I got enough on my plate with the little I do with offense and continue to get to know this group. We have talked about this a lot. Developing the unity of the 2012 team is way more important than any other facet of football. You do a whole bunch of team building stuff and the strength and conditioning stuff, the academic stuff, keeping them accountable for going to class and eating right and all that stuff. All that stuff is offseason stuff, which is important. In the meantime, we will finish out the staff defensively; we will make the announcement of who is doing what. We will take two days off, and then we will get in here and start having about four to five weeks of staff meetings and offensive and defensive meetings and special teams meetings in addition to the strength and conditioning stuff that develops. We will then lineup, and we will have 15 days of spring.
On the defense changing ...
Yeah, I just mentioned that. We will do that. We are not going to do 3-3 stack anymore; it will be some version of 3-4 or 4-3.
On changing the misconceptions of what players do on offense and defense ...
You just tell them, that it is not true. Again, when Will came here, Will is a good looking 6-foot-6, big body, moves good and changes direction. He came to campus, when we were practicing, and he saw what we were doing with Tyler Urban. If he didn’t believe us, then we watched some tape with it. I don’t even know if you guys know we lined up Tyler Urban as a tight end at times. We only had one of them bodies, so he was the only one that we could do that with. Those body types are hard to find, and the more you can get, the more stuff you can do with it.
Opening Statement ...
We finished up getting 26 guys. Five of them went back to last year, and those are the guys that I want to talk about first, because I have not had an opportunity to meet with you guys since those guys have been on campus. Overall, I am happy with what we got. Twenty-six guys all together - 14 on offense and 12 on defense. There really wasn’t any area that we just had to stockpile, but if you look at the class going from one quarterback, two running backs, four offensive linemen, one tight end, six receivers, three defensive linemen, three linebackers, four safeties and two cornerbacks. There was a little bit of everything, which is kind of what we were after. Recruiting is not an exact science to the point to where you can dictate exactly what you get at the end. You have got to take what you got. As far as the balance of guys, we are real excited about where we are at with it. If you look, a lot has been made of this as far as where we are going to get our guys from, and I told you all, that wasn’t going to change too much from what we have done in the past. Right now, we have got 11 from Florida, four from Ohio, four from Texas, three from Maryland and two from New Jersey and one each from Minnesota and Pennsylvania. We need to be able to take care of the surrounding areas from West Virginia but also get down into Florida, and I think the Orange Bowl helped create a lot of excitement down there. We had those buses driving around and a lot of those kids went to the game and all that. That is as many as we have gotten out of Florida, and Texas continues to be a state that we will continue to get into based on where we want to pull some kids from, going in Big 12 conference.
On the five guys currently on campus
Imarjaye Albury ...
Imarjaye Albury is a defensive tackle. He is a big, strong guy, who played at Northwestern High School down in Miami. He was a force for them for a couple of years, and we are excited to have him on campus.
Ford Childress ...
We have Ford Childress, who played at Kinkaid school. He is a big, tall guy, who has been in a passing offense for the last three years and understands what we do offensively. We beat a lot of people out all the way from the west coast to the east coast. We are excited to have him up here.
Sean Walters ...
We have Sean Walters, who is a big, tall, lean safety. He is 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds. He didn’t play his junior year. He came back from that and had a heck of a senior year. He is a rangy guy who can cover a lot of ground, play safety. He will probably gain some weight and be able to move down to an outside linebacker at some point as well.
Jordan Thompson ...
Jordan Thompson is a slot (receiver). He comes from Katy High School, which has won about 95 percent of their games over the last decade or two, but comes from a very good program. He was the second leading receiver in the city of Houston. He is not a very big guy, but as we have found out last year with Dustin, you come in and get into a program, you are going to gain weight, and as long as you can play, you are going to be able to play. We look forward to him being able to go through the spring.
Karl Joseph ...
Karl Joseph is the fifth guy, who has been doing an unbelievable job in the weight room. It is not going to take him a long to adjust physically. He is 5-foot-9, 190-pounds and has got muscles sticking out everywhere. You can see on film that he will be able to come up and hit you and should adjust.
We did need a little bit of help at inside receiver and safety, as well as at quarterback where we only have two bodies. Those five guys are going to be able to come in and help us right away in the spring. They are down there throwing weights around right now and will be able to get out there and do a lot of good things in the spring.
On who will be arriving on campus on June 10, 2012 ...
Moving on to the guys that will be here in June. We have told the rest of these guys, which there is 21 of them, to be ready to finish the season strong, finish the academic year strong, finish up their academics and then join the team June 10th. That will be the day that they can get into the summer session, as long as their academics are in order, we look forward to getting these guys on campus.
Christian Brown ...
Christian Brown is a defensive tackle out of New Jersey. He only played one year up in New Jersey. He is a big body. He is a strong kid. He played down in Florida for the majority of his career and then came up into Jersey as a move-in with his father and was able to play pretty good in about seven games. You can’t have enough big bodies on the defensive line. We are all aware of that. Probably one of the needs that we have heading into next year is to get some young guys who are able to play right away when it comes to defensive line.
Roshard Burney ...
This kid rushed for 2,000 yards in high school. That doesn’t happen very often. He is a big, strong, powerful guy, who probably weighs 205-pounds already, and he is going to get bigger. He runs on his toes, the kid smiles a bunch and was all-state down in Florida. He is a guy that when you watch his tape, he is going to run you over, but then he is also going to bounce off of you and out-run people. He has got a really good combination of strength and size and can run around pretty fast as well.
Torry Clayton ...
We were able to get a second running back out of south Florida, Torry Clayton. He is more like Roshard, then he is like Buie and Garrison. Buie and Garrison are guys that are shifty guys that can get in spaces and make you miss and start and stop on a dime. Torry is a little bit more of a slasher. He has some power to him. He is not a small guy. He is going to be able to give us some strength in the backfield. As we saw last year, we started camp with five backs, and we were down to two in the bowl game. That is a position that through wear and tear with those guys that you need to play a lot of bodies. We also played two or three bigger backs who are able to get in there and do blocking. With as much as we are in two back and three back sets, the more of those running backs we can have back there, the better. The more of those guys that can carry the ball, the better. So we are looking at a couple of backs that we got from down there that we are pretty excited about who can do a whole bunch of different things.
Travares Copeland ...
Travares Copeland, out of Port St. Lucie, probably has as good of feet as anybody on the roster that we have right now. The kid played quarterback for them. There is a whole bunch of different positions that he can play. He is probably more along the lines of a slot receiver. We can do a lot of different stuff with to get him the ball. He runs well and was a kid that again can play a whole bunch of different positions and those are the type of kids that we want to get. Guys that can play a whole lot of positions. He wants to play receiver so we will stick him in there and try to get him the ball as much as we can.
KJ Dillon ...
KJ is a great kid. He is a good looking 6-foot-2, 195-pound guy that will smack you. He played both ways for Apopka, which is a really good program in Orlando, that has won a whole bunch of games. He is another guy that is long and lean and can run around and that will also strike you. And as you guys see, some of these highlights we put together for some of these guys, the one thing on that whole tape that stood out to me was when you put him on there, guys running a route across the middle catching the ball, the guy is knocking the heck out of them. KJ is able to cover a lot of ground. He is a physical kid, who is going to get bigger. He is going to get stronger, and he is going to be a guy who could come in and be able to play.
Mark Glowinski ...
Mark Glowinski is the only junior college kid that we signed this year out of Lackawanna. He is an eastern Pennsylvania kid. He is a guy that gained on average 50 pounds over the last couple of years. Coming out of high school, he wasn’t very developed. He was tall and rangy. He went to Lackawanna and gained about 100 pounds, and you watch him come off the ball, he is a physical kid. He’s every bit a 6-foot-5, 6-foot-6, 300 pounds. He has got great feet, but he plays with an attitude. He has two years of college experience already under his belt, where he can come in and will have a chance to compete for the starting left tackle spot come next year. It was important to us to get one junior college offensive lineman. When you look at what we have coming back from an offensive line standpoint, we basically have four starters coming back, and then we are able to plug a guy like him in there to be the fifth starter or some guys that we will have in the spring to be the fifth starter. It will give us some depth, and it will be fun to watch that unfold.
Jarrod Harper ...
Jarrod Harper is a safety from right down the road in Frostburg, Maryland. He was our first commit of the class and was our most solid commit of the class. There is nobody on our list that wants to be a Mountaineer more than Jarrod. He probably came to every home game. He played a lot of running back for Frostburg, and they won a bunch games. He has played a lot of football. He just wants to play on the defensive side of the ball, so we will play him at safety. He was one of the most solid kids that we had. He is just a pleasure to be around. He has a big old flying WV on the side of his head here for the last couple of days and will keep it here. Can’t wait to get him here. He would walk here if he could get into school and be down there in the weight room right now.
Korey Harris ...
Korey Harris is a defensive end. He is a good-looking kid. He is 6-foot-4, 230 out of Jacksonville, Fla. He is a guy who will develop into a big boy. He is 6-foot-4, 230-pounds right now, but can come off the ball and get after the quarterback. Headed into the conference that we are heading into, it is going to be crucial that we have guys that can rush the passer, as we all understand that, and this is a guy that regardless of how big he is, you can see his tenacity when he comes off the ball and his desire to get to the quarterback.
Garrett Hope ...
Garrett Hope, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound out of The Woodlands, Texas. Another program in that state of Texas in Houston that has won a tremendous amount of games. You talk about Pearland High School, Katy High School and The Woodlands High School, those three teams win as many games in the state of Texas as anybody else does. He is a guy who transferred in a couple of years ago out of Tulsa out of Jenks, which also is a program that won just a ton of games and so his background from what he has been used to is good. He came in and played at outside linebacker. He is a guy who can drop into the gap, but he is also a guy who can rush the passer and is a big physical guy, that to the point, where he is good against the run as well.
Will Johnson ...
Will Johnson is a tight end out of Minnesota. He came on a visit in December and watched us practice and how we used Tyler Urban a lot as far as a bigger body, who can put his hand on the ground, and can come off and zone block. He can also run down field and catch the ball. Watching him run up and down the basketball court there at his high school in Minnesota, you can tell and based on what we saw on tape, he is a guy who we are not interested in just sticking his hand in the ground and watching him block. He is a guy who will be able to run a whole bunch of routes and be able to catch the ball down field certainly as much as Tyler did and probably even more than that. Physically, he is ready to do that right now.
Dee Joyner ...
Dee Joyner is a receiver out of Miami Central. He moved in from Georgia and only played one year there in south Florida. Based on his junior tape in Georgia, we loved how he came in out of his cuts. He isn’t the biggest dude, but he is a playmaker. He can run down field and catch the ball. He is a really good return guy. Going into Miami Central where they have got just tons of talent, he was able to adjust quickly and be one of their most productive guys on the field. He helped them to a 13-1 record and made a lot of plays on a team that had a lot of guys that can make a lot of plays. He adjusted quickly.
Nana Kyeremeh ...
Nana Kyeremeh might be the fastest guy in this class. He comes from Worthington, Ohio, where the guy did everything. You talk about a guy that can be a cornerback. He is a 6-foot, 6-foot-1 guy who can play cornerback, that can play safety and does an unbelievable job of rushing kicks and blocking kicks. He has probably blocked four or five of them this year. He can play a lot of different things. He is very, very smart kid. I don’t know what we are going to do with him yet. He can be a cornerback, he could be a safety, and he is going to keep continuing to grow. You watch him make plays as far as coming off the edge blocking kicks. He has got a burst and then you also see him pick a ball and take it back for a touchdown. There is not anybody who can catch him.
Sam Lebbie ...
Sam Lebbie is a linebacker out of DeMatha over in Washington, D.C. He is a good sized kid, who was a three-year starter for DeMatha. He had 16,000 tackles over the course of his career. He has played a lot of ball, is a physical kid and obviously is not going to get any smaller. I look forward to seeing how he develops over the years.
Devonte Mathis ...
Devonte Mathis is another guy from Miramar, who was a very instrumental kid when it came to being on a team that won 13 games and was 13-1 and played safety for them, inside receiver for them, played wideout for them, played quarterback for them and did a whole bunch of things. When you talk about getting as many guys as you can with that type of a body type who can play that many different positions, you got a guy that is going to be extremely productive.
Tony Matteo ...
Tony Matteo is out of Manchester High School in Ohio. Tony is another one of these guys who came over to about five different camps and came over to about five different games. He was solid from the very beginning and is a very smart kid who can play center, can play guard and is athletic enough to play tackle. He is going to play in the all-star games over in Ohio. He is a big, tough, country kid who will come over and work hard and be able to take the abuse that he gets from coach Bedenbaugh.
Tyler Orlosky ...
The other guy that coach Bedenbaugh spent a whole bunch of time recruiting is Tyler Orlosky, another big, strong guy. Bill likes football quite a bit. We are talking about coach Bedenbaugh. He likes football, and he likes to go home and eat dinner and bounce his little kid on his knee. Tyler Orlosky and Tony are the same two types of kids where they like to play football and lift weights and go home and sleep and wake up and do the same thing over and over again. Tyler played at St. Edward High School over in Cleveland. He is a great kid. His work ethic is unbelievable and is a big, strong, powerful guy who the more of those guys that you can have up front, the better.
Deontay McManus ...
We are excited about Deontay. He was one of our early commits and is one of the most highly rated guys that we have. He is very productive guy, and he was a very highly recruited guy. He committed in the summer and was solid since day one. We are fired up about getting him over here as soon as we can to teach him what to do and get him out there. Physically, I can tell you right now that he is ready to play at the next level. We have got to get him here and teach him what to do, and we have got to get his skills right to the point to where he can get out there and compete at this level. We are excited about Deontay, and we can’t wait to get him here.
Brandon Napolean ...
Brandon Napolean is from St. Peter’s Prep in New Jersey. He comes from a great family. His dad is Eugene Napolean, who was a great player here back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is a wonderful guy. Brandon is a great player. He played quarterback for them, and they won a whole bunch of games like they have for years over in Jersey. He is a guy who can do a whole lot of different things. He can play on either side of the ball. We have kind of settled right now to start him playing at cornerback. He has enough athletic ability to be able to play cornerback and has played a whole bunch of football.
Noble Nwachukwu ...
Noble Nwachukwu is a guy out of Dallas, Texas. He has only played for a few years. He is an outside linebacker type of guy who you see coming off the ball with some pop and can rush the passer. He is a guy who has played at Wylle. That is a high school that they have won a whole bunch of games and played very good competition to the point he is going to be used to the competition. It is just about being able to come in and be able to adjust to the speed of the game. He does do a great job of coming off the ball and rushing the passer.
Adam Pankey ...
Adam Pankey is the fourth offensive lineman. We wanted to get four, and we got four. We are pretty excited about the four guys that we got. He is an enormous dude. He is 6-foot-5, 220 and runs up and down the basketball court, throwing elbows, getting rebounds and changing directions. He is a guy that was pretty highly recruited that we got in on late and was able to seal the deal here in the last few days. He is really a good kid. He comes from a fun family, is a fun kid to be around, and he has got some younger siblings that might even be bigger than him it looks like to me. So we are excited about the offensive line class that we put together, and he was the one that rounded that out.
Devonte Robinson ...
Devonte Robinson is taller than 6-foot-1. It says 6-foot-1 from Delray Beach and Village Academy. He had a great senior season and probably went from 6-foot-1 to closer to 6-foot-2, possibly 6-foot-3 over the course of his senior year. He had a great year. Almost 1,000 yards receiving. He is a wideout. You talk about the different types of receivers that we have. Bigger guys, shiftier guys, taller, leaner guys. The taller, leaner guys are the ones that we stick out wide, and he fits the mold as a pure wideout who is able to get down field at the speed but also be able to catch the ball over the shoulder.
On how the defensive recruiting has changed in the last month ...
A little bit. I thought we wanted some more edge rush guys which we are going to go to a more 3-4 scheme then the stack. In the stack, you are playing with a lot of middle linebacker type bodies, which we have a lot of those on campus as well. We needed to be able to get some outside linebacker type guys who will be able to gain weight and be able to come down and be defensive end guys and come off the field and rush. We got two or three of those bodies who we are looking for as far as the outside goes.
On the biggest needs in the 2012 class ...
You need everything. If I ask each one of these position coaches how many guys do they need to add to their room, they are going tell me about two to three more per position that we can actually sign. We felt like we needed a little bit of everything, and we were able to get a little bit of everything. I don’t think it is one specific area that we wanted to get, as opposed to just making sure that we hit all areas. Recruiting is not an exact science to the point to where, at the end, you are not going to be able to pinpoint exactly what your numbers are. You send out a bunch of letters, and you get back what you get back and you got to make that work.
On how many scholarships were available ...
Right now in the spring, we have got 60 or 61. With adding the five guys, we are at 61 right now, which means we can add 25 in the fall considering we keep everybody which is all about the retention aspect of things. If all 60 of those guys continue to get into that weight room and work hard and do a good job in the class room, out retention is good. The 20 some guys that we add, we will then be somewhere around 80. We may add a few or lose a few, you never know what is going to happen.
On paying attention to the ranking of the recruiting class ...
Not nearly as much as you (the media) do. It is a good starting point and a good reference. You get on the internet and the various tv shows, the reports on it, obviously we are like everybody elsewhere. We want people to say good things about us and what our body of work is, but the truth of the matter is we are not going to know how these guys fare here until a couple of years anyway. There will be a handful of them coming in who will make a difference next year. There will be a handful who will take a few years, two or three years, before they are able to contribute and then there will be a couple that we sign who are never going to be as big of a contributor as we want them to be. That is the nature of what you sign and how these kids develop. They are still 17, 18 or 19 years old to the point where we don’t know how they are going to develop totally. We try to do our best and meet our needs, but it is about getting them in here and paying them a whole bunch of attention. The five guys that I pay attention the most to on this list are the guys that are here. Those are the most important five to us right now, because they are in here working out every day. We are able to spend time with them and keep up with their academics and get in the film room. Those are the five guys who we as coaches will pay the most attention to over the next couple of months. Then when the rest of these guys get here in June, then it comes their turn to spend a whole lot of time with them to try and develop them.
On how he projects players will develop ...
You get his body type and the position that he plays and what you see on film and what you think that they are going to develop into. You don’t know if they are going to get bigger and change positions or develop their skills or how much they are going to develop their skills. It is a bit of a guessing game. We are all aware of that.
On the amount of recruits from Florida and the impact of the Orange Bowl ...
Robert Gillespie did a great job down in south Florida. Shannon Dawson took over some of the central Florida kids and did a good job prior to and after the bowl game. West Virginia always has done well in Florida, and by us being able to make it a priority and get some guys down there, and working it pretty hard, we were able to be down there a good bit of time. The exposure that we got down there, I certainly don’t think hurt.
On finishing recruiting and adding to the coaching staff at the same time ...
Not having the full staff hurts you a little bit. Like I said, I think these guys came in and did a good job. And Joe DeForest, being able to add him with his recruiting background especially as many years as he has been doing it was able to get in front of a lot of defensive guys. He was able to tell them about what the future is going to be about. This is second year in a row that we haven’t had a full staff, which it is what it is. That is the reality of college football at times, and everybody else has got to deal with it as well. We are certainly not making excuses for anything. Retention is good on a coaching staff, and if we are able to keep everybody and get everybody going in the right direction, then it might be a little bit easier next year, but each year is a different year.
On recruiting with the conference change ...
It can help. I think that everybody is very excited about going to the Big 12 at some point here. We are all anxiously awaiting the decision. The Big 12 is widely regarded as one of the better conferences out there. We are aware of that, and we are excited about where that is going to take us. We have made a conscious effort to make sure that we continue to take care of what has made West Virginia good for quite a while, which is recruit West Virginia first, recruit the surrounding states, then get into Florida, and then use the contacts that exist to be able to move west slightly.
On adding more and more recruits from Texas in the future ...
Probably slightly. They won’t continue to grow every year. You got a ceiling which we got two last year, one happened to start for us for the majority of the year. Then we got four this year. It is a priority. We are going to go there. We get guys from Houston and Dallas and the surrounding areas that call us all the time. It has got to be a good fit. There has got to be a reason for us to do that. We try to do the best that we can to find the right guy for the position, the right guy for the scholarship, then we make sure that they are wanting to come up here as well. I don’t know how many you can get. We don’t put a number of it. We settled with four, because those were the four that we wanted.
On the differences between being a head coach and assistant coach on signing day ...
It is the same thing. You wake up, make calls, you anxiously await for it to be over and you get the Letter of Intent, so you know it is final and then you start watching next year’s kids which is what we have been doing the whole day.
On recruiting until the April 1st deadline ...
That never stops. We still got a couple of open spots for 2012, so we will continue to look and see if something becomes available. Much like we did last year when we brought in the couple of seniors that had to be a part of the class, a couple of transfers, that sort of thing. If a transfer kid becomes available that fits a need, we can continue to add. High school and junior college kids continue to pop up, and if it fits a need, we will be more than happy to have him.
On recruiting kids from successful high schools ...
Good programs develop players. I am not just referring to the three schools in Texas. You take the teams like Miami Central, who was close to winning a state championship, Miramar was close to winning a state championship, and there was a lot of schools that were good programs that develop players. I don’t think those guys are done developing as well. What I just made reference to, once those guys get here, that is when our job truly kicks in, and we got to see how we can develop them. You want to recruit kids to get the best possible players that you can in here, but then you don’t quit with them. That is just when your job starts. It is not all about throwing good players out there. It is about coaching them and developing them to the point, where they continue to get better.
On when the decision will be made on who will redshirt ...
About a week before the first game. Same as we did last year. We get as many kids as we can get in here and fill the roster up with as many good players as you can to line up in August. You start practice and about 20 or so practices later is when you make that decision. We have been very clear with all those guys to not worry about redshirting, don’t worry about whether you are or whether you aren’t going to be able to participate next year. You need to come in, and you need to have a great summer which we expect all of them here, and if they are not here, we expect them all here about June 10th and then once they go through nine weeks summer strength and conditioning and then get out there and do a bunch of seven on seven stuff on their own and learn from the older kids. We line up in August, and we practice the heck out of them three weeks prior to figuring out if they are going to help us or not.
On his recruiting as a head coach ...
You still try to get a bunch of guys to develop relationships with the kids. It is not always just the area coach, but the head coach is still got to call and make the contact and go see them. Other coaches, whether it is offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator or the offensive line coach going into another area, once you narrow the list down, you try and get a bunch of people who develop relationships with them. It is busy, and it is ongoing. It never stops until today. A lot of these guys behind you (assistant coaches) back here worked a lot harder than I did at it. It is a group effort to the point where you want to get as many people involved as you can.
On the difference between teaching and developing the guys already in the program and the kids he recruited ...
I don’t buy into that. I would never use that as an excuse. You take what you got. You got a year to work with them. You take what you got and develop them, you play them, you put them into position, you try and get the most out of them. This year’s team is going to be different than last year’s team. About a month and a half ago, which was approximately a week after the bowl game, we sat in here as the 2012 team and talked about what the 2012 team needs to do. We didn’t mention anything about the 2011 team. It is all about the 2012 team. Then you add specific pieces of that puzzle, which five of the guys who are already here, then you get another 20 to add to it, and when it is time to add to it, you add to it, but it the meantime, you take what you got and do the very best you can to make them better. We don’t buy into the fact of we got to wait until our guys get in here, before we are going to be good.
On Travarse Copeland playing quarterback ...
No he is not going to play quarterback.
On developing the team and the goals for the spring ...
I got enough on my plate with the little I do with offense and continue to get to know this group. We have talked about this a lot. Developing the unity of the 2012 team is way more important than any other facet of football. You do a whole bunch of team building stuff and the strength and conditioning stuff, the academic stuff, keeping them accountable for going to class and eating right and all that stuff. All that stuff is offseason stuff, which is important. In the meantime, we will finish out the staff defensively; we will make the announcement of who is doing what. We will take two days off, and then we will get in here and start having about four to five weeks of staff meetings and offensive and defensive meetings and special teams meetings in addition to the strength and conditioning stuff that develops. We will then lineup, and we will have 15 days of spring.
On the defense changing ...
Yeah, I just mentioned that. We will do that. We are not going to do 3-3 stack anymore; it will be some version of 3-4 or 4-3.
On changing the misconceptions of what players do on offense and defense ...
You just tell them, that it is not true. Again, when Will came here, Will is a good looking 6-foot-6, big body, moves good and changes direction. He came to campus, when we were practicing, and he saw what we were doing with Tyler Urban. If he didn’t believe us, then we watched some tape with it. I don’t even know if you guys know we lined up Tyler Urban as a tight end at times. We only had one of them bodies, so he was the only one that we could do that with. Those body types are hard to find, and the more you can get, the more stuff you can do with it.
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